Dissent and Democracy

THIS PIECE is being written about a week after a sessions court in Raipur convicted the human rights activist and physician, Dr Binayak Sen to life imprisonment on charges of sedition. Dr Sen, an alumnus of the Christian Medical College, Vellore was honoured by the college a few years ago for distinguished service by an alumni by awarding him the Paul Harrison Award. Since the sentence came in, lots of protests and criticism of the judgement has come in from various quarters. Binayak Sen’s involvement in spporting the human rights of the tribals of Chattisgarh comes out of his work as a doctor involved over decades in providing health care in the area.

Along with Dr Sen, there were two others who were sentenced. One of course was a Maoist ideologue and the other – Piyush Guha, a tendu leaf trader, who used to buy tendu leaves from Chattisgarh and sell them in West Bengal. So obscure was he that even the Maoists didn’t know, that he was supposed to be one of them; he didn’t figure on any one’s list of ‘wanted’ people, and when he was arrested, it would seem that everyone was puzzled.

The sentence raises the question of the place of dissent and divergent opinions in a democratic society. I can understand condemning and cracking down on violence. I don’t see too much difference between left wing extremism and right wing terrorism and if we are dealing with one with an iron hand, we should surely do the same with the other too..... But is even non violent dissent a crime and a threat to national security?

In 1947, when we obtained political independence from the British, the Communists had called it a jhoothi azadi- a false independence. Today, we know why. We have retained archaic British laws, colonial structures and bureaucracies and even the bearer’s uniform in the district collector’s office wears an uniform smelling to high heavens of imperialism. There is one significance difference though. The British administration was an explicitly colonising regime and so sedition was a legitimate offence for them. Sedition as an offence in the penal code of a democratic country stinks. A democracy should be so able to attract its own people to itself, that seceding from the country is the thought that is farthest from the citizen’s mind. With close to 139 districts in the country covered by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and other such draconian laws, it seems that Indian democracy is being sustained at gun point in several parts, rather than a willing participation by the citizenry.

Coming back to the matter of the sentence handed down to Dr Binayak Sen, what can one do? The first thing to do is to acquaint oneself with the bare facts of the case and what different voices are saying. A voice that I have been hearing and finding it to be disturbing and what M J Akbar, the noted journalist and a senior of Binayak at school has articulated is that “India has become a strange democracy where Binayak Sen gets life in jail and dacoits get a life in luxury. It takes years of pressure for government to move against those looting the nation’s treasury”. Akbar makes the further telling point, “Binayak made a fundamental, mortal mistake. He was on the side of the poor. That is a non-negotiable error in our oligarchic democracy."

The Indian parliament is increasingly becoming the preserve of the rich and privileged. In an earlier era, corporate czars used to stay out of politics and curry favour with politicians by donating to party funds, under writing election expenses and similar activities. They have increasingly dispensed with that – (though of course lobbyists still exist as any one reading the news in the last weeks knows) and are entering parliament themselves, so that they can directly shape policy without go betweens and middle men. When such is the composition of our parliament, siding the poor and speaking up on their behalf will be obviously charged with sedition, no less. The only consolation that these hapless prisoners will have is that of the company of the Father of the Nation, who too in his time was charged by his colonial masters under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code with sedition. Yesterday’s colonisers wore suits and ties; our masters of today wear crumpled dhotis. Not much has changed and perhaps not much will – in the short run.”